Photos posted on X last week that claim to show an American visitor’s pickup truck targeted by vandalism in Canada received tens of thousands of views. The post chided Canadians for resorting to “childish anti-American theatre” as they adopt an “Elbows Up” response amid the escalating trade war with the United States. A reverse image search shows the photos are actually from 2020 and reflect opposition in British Columbia to the U.S. administration and to cross-border travel during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The social media post appeared Sept. 7, the day before Canadian counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of imported U.S. goods were set to take effect.
“THIS IS NOT PATRIOTISM. THIS IS EMBARRASSING. Vandalizing an American visitor’s vehicle because you hate Trump? Pathetic. Booing the U.S. anthem? Pathetic. Then calling yourself ‘Elbows Up’ while pretending this somehow makes Canada stronger? It doesn’t. You don’t defend Canada by acting like a FOOL,” the post said.
The photos showed a white pickup truck with “Trump” and “USA” spray-painted in red and yellow on the body and windows. In a followup post, the used credited another X account for the photos, but a search of that account found no evidence it had posted the images.
The Sept. 7 post received close to 160,000 views within 24 hours, with hundreds of shares across X.
One of the photos was reproduced the next day on a Facebook account. The Facebook post, in French, drew many comments, including several that appeared to believe that the incident occurred in Quebec. The Facebook post had similar wording in French to a post from an X user who shared the initial Sept. 7 post.
The images used in this claim were taken and posted to social media almost six years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown when sentiment against the United States and against travel across provincial boundaries ran high.
The federal government had initially closed the U.S. border to non-essential travel in response to the emergence of COVID-19, before replacing that measure on Mar. 25, 2020 with a 14-day isolation or quarantine period for any out-of-country visitors. Provincial public health officials urged people not to travel unless it was essential. There were reports in B.C. of vehicles with licence plates from outside the province becoming targets for vandalism.
A reverse image search of the images posted last week led to news articles about a white pickup truck in Victoria that its owner’s son said was vandalized in September 2020.
One of the images is used as the main photo for a Sept. 11, 2020, CBC News article. The photo is credited to Jonathon Vindalin and the article attached a Sept. 10, 2020 post from Vindalin’s X account in which he shared the two photos of the truck and denounced the vandalism.
Another article from Castanet.net, a local news source based in B.C.‘s Okanagan region, included a response from Victoria police to Vindalin’s post.
In his post, Vindalin identified the owner of the truck as his father, who is Canadian. He explained that his father came up to help him and his family settle into their new home.
“He has been here for almost 3 months visiting family and helping us out. My wife and I just had a baby — his first grandchild and we just moved. He did his 2 week quarantine. He is Canadian and can’t even vote for or against Trump,” he said in a series of followup posts.
He ends his posts by praising a local body shop for removing the graffiti from the vehicle and thanking everyone for supporting him and family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2026.
